5 An Unlucky Day
by E. J. Morgan
Summary: Q-niverse AU - There are days when nothing seems to be working the way it should, when you feel you should crawl into a dark hole and wait for it to end... This is exactly how 16-year-old Q, MI6's youngest ever Quartermaster feels right now.


16-year-old Q, MI6's youngest ever Quartermaster was very rudely awakened by someone roughly grabbing him by his arms and dragging him from the bed into a standing position in his dark room. Having worked over forty hours straight before finally being able to come home and literally collapsing onto the bed – fully clothed, thankfully – he now had a hard time trying to gather his thoughts and make sense of the happenings. In the dark, without his glasses (the only thing he had the energy to take off and place in the nightstand before succumbing to a much-needed sleep the night before) he could just make out four shapes standing in front of him. All four seemed to be burly males, probably in their late thirties – early forties, with simple, old-fashioned pistols pointed at him and self-satisfied smirks on their faces of men who thought to be very sure of themselves. Q risked a glance at the clock – 2:17 A.M. – and tried to think of a reason why these people should be in his bedroom at that ungodly hour – or at any hour for that matter – but couldn't for the life of him come up with a plausible explanation.

Before he could voice a question however, one of the men swiftly manhandled him to sink to his knees, and held him down while two others tied his wrists together behind his back and the fourth man pulled something that seemed to be a pillowcase over his head. While being shoved out of his flat, out of the condominium and to the street (sadly but understandably everything empty at that early time), Q literally had to stifle a laugh when he realized that he could see through the material just fine and so even without his glasses he could at least make out which way he was being led by his kidnappers.

As he was shoved into a waiting plain black van that took off with them at once with screeching tires, he couldn't help himself and said: "If you wanted to invite me to a party, you could have just told me, you know." His cheek earned him a sharp kick into his side from one of his companions and an angry growl from the driver, directed at the criminals. "You didn't gag him before taking him out of the house?"

"Oh… sorry, boss, we forgot. He didn't try to call for help, though, and didn't even struggle when we took him!"

"But I do hope you at least had the common sense to plug his ears!?"

"Ahm… no…?"

"Marvelous! Now he has heard our voices and even saw your faces when you took him! You are a bunch of incompetents!"

Q resisted the urge to point out that he could very well see and hear them even now and rather proceeded to berate himself silently for being so tired the night before as to forget to set his alarms he had of course installed in his flat upon moving in. Had the alarms been activated, these fools never would have had any chance of entering and taking him. So for the remainder of the ride to the yet unknown location he did everything to tune out their bantering and sulked instead at his own stupidity.

He hadn't even had his Earl Grey yet… How can these men be that cruel!?

After around half an hour of driving, they finally arrived to their destination. Q was again very unceremoniously lifted out of the van and shoved to the ground. Next he knew he was being lifted and carried into what he thought looked like an abandoned garage or a barn of some sort, maybe a small cottage. (It was not easy to discern without his glasses, from under a pillowcase still on his head.)

Inside, it was definitely much darker and colder then outside, as if the place had been completely emptied and left a long time ago.

Q was then shoved into a corner to sit on the cold, hard floor, and the pillowcase was teared from him. (It was probably deemed unnecessary after having established that he had already seen his attackers.)

Q looked around and realized that the room was completely empty – except for an old-looking computer beside him hooked up to what was probably a server at least ten years out-of-date and a CRT monitor to go with it balanced precariously on a small wooden table. The keyboard had obviously seen better days and there was no mouse at all…

"What the-"

"You, Quartermaster – and yes, we KNOW you are the Quartermaster of MI6 and a computer genius at that, so don't even try do deny it – are going to help us hack into the system of the Bank of England and transfer for each of us a neat little sum of money to our personal accounts, so that we won't ever have money-matters in our lives again! If you do that, we may decide to let you live."

For a moment, Q didn't even find the words because he was too busy trying to decide whether it would be wise to start laughing hysterically. At the end, he just settled on blinking at them in exasperation.

"You may begin right away. You have no more than two hours." – instructed the man who was presumably the mastermind behind that genial plan.

"Honestly, you can't be serious!" – Q exclaimed, looking for all the world like he was taking the incompetence of his kidnappers as a personal offense against his intelligence. "You really are morons, aren't you? You have no idea how to even get a modern PC that actually is capable to do what you wish it to accomplish, let alone taking hostage and properly threaten the Quartermaster of MI6… So, maybe you should just let me go before any of you idiots gets seriously injured… or worse. Truly, just a fair warning, guys."

"Ah, it's cute. The little boy thinks there's someone coming to rescue him? Let me tell you something, lad: nobody knows where you are! There are no security cameras in here, no neighbors in a five-mile radius, and we didn't even bring any mobile phones with us that they could track! We have searched your pockets so we know you don't have anything on you either. The only connection to the outside world is that computer; and trust me: we will be watching like a hawk everything you do with it! (Q couldn't help himself, and actually snorted at that: as if they would recognize anything he did!) So your MI6 friends have no means of finding us here!" – the probably daftest member of the criminal group looked so sure of himself and so smug that Q nearly felt sorry to destroy his happiness.

This brief and rare sentiment changed quickly though when one of the other cronies threatened: "You'll be sorry if you don't cooperate or if you try something foolish! We will break all your fingers one by one so that you'll never be able to properly type with them again!"

Q decided then that he frankly had had enough of this ridiculous situation – besides, he was still very tired and irked about his interrupted well-deserved rest and his head had started to hurt from lack of his glasses. So, he jumped up from his spot on the floor (having previously unbeknown to his kidnappers undone his binds), and kicked the nearest man in the groin. As the criminal doubled over in pain, Q used the opportunity and pushed him over, into the other man standing nearby. Both of them fell over, and so the others proceeded to attack but seeing that they weren't very clever or trained, and Q was very quick and able to use their weights against them, the fight didn't last long. Q thought Alec, who had insisted he learn to fight to be able to defend himself should the need ever arise, would be quite proud. Soon, the teenager managed to have all five men tied to the radiator, three of them still hollering in pain and the two others cursing.

"You are even stupider than I thought possible. You're not even capable of attacking a skinny teenager organized. What would you have done if any double-Os had come? You'd all be dead by now. They're not so nice or forgiving as I am, you know." - Q shook his head disapprovingly then grinned maliciously. – "Though of course I can't let that go unpunished either."

He sat to the computer and waited for it to boot and then connect to the internet. ("Honestly, that's really a dinosaur!") He then hacked all of their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and posted embarrassing comments and insults to their connections in their names.

Finally, he turned to them. "You can be very glad I don't have a camera. I'm sure your friends would have a field day about the pictures I could post… It's a pity, really. Well, guys, I've had a good time, but sorry to say, every good things have to come to an end. I sadly have to leave you as I am expected back at work in just two hours. So much for getting some sleep… Whatever. Have a nice day! Bye" – And with a last wave to the cowering would-be kidnappers, he exited the little house and resigned himself to walk home. He could have of course taken their van but without a license he didn't think it would be wise. So much paperwork if he got caught…

He realized he didn't have his wallet with him, so no money for a cab or even a bus ticket. "My day is just getting better and better. And it's only early morning." – He spent the better part of his journey home grumping about his misfortune.

He arrived at MI6 Headquarters after about an hour of walking. ("Typical, they couldn't even take the best way to that damn barn! This distance really normally shouldn't have taken half an hour driving.")

Inside, MI6 was in uproar: his minions were running around in panic, frantically calling out coordinates and instructions at each other while all the double-Os were hunched over what looked like to be a huge, printed map of the city laid out on Q's workstation, placing markers on different locations and occasionally shaking their heads. In the middle of the whole chaos stood Mallory, totally lost and mournful. Eve was trying to get his attention to hand him coffee but it didn't work. Tanner just looked ashen-faced and broken.

Q thought he had a pretty good idea what it was all about. "Am I maybe interrupting something?" – Every heads turned to him at once. They all got so silent you could have heard a pin drop. And then the scene exploded as they all began to talk at once and run towards him.

Q was stormed by everyone, being hugged, his hair ruffled and even scooped up by someone. Mallory patted his shoulder, smiling relieved.

"You gave us quite a fright, my boy! A neighbor of yours reported that she had seen you being kidnapped by some men and taken away in a van early in the morning. We were trying to locate you ever since but with no success…" – He trailed off, looking ashamed and still a little panicky.

"It's true, they took me. But it's fine, I'm all right. They weren't very smart kidnappers; it was not difficult to get away from them."

"I'm going to kill them!" – Announced Bond, and every double-O echoed his promise, nodding.

"Thanks, guys, but it really isn't necessary. I don't think they'll ever try anything again."

"Where are they, Q? What happened to them?" – Inquired Mallory.

"Can't we just forget it?"

"Q, they kidnapped the Quartermaster of MI6. We obviously can't forget it! They have to be punished!" – said Moneypenny strictly.

"They already have been punished… But all right, all right… I can show you."

And so he did. They all rode to the house (every double O, Tanner and even Mallory) where they found the criminals in the same position as Q had left them. They looked frightened when they saw Q enter the house and tried to diffuse into the wall behind them to get away from him. They were covered in cuts and bruises. Two of them had bleeding noses and one was holding his right wrist funny.

"Please, please, don't let him hurt us! And we beg you not to let him access our accounts anymore either! We'll do anything just please, get him away from us!"

"Q, really, what did you do with them?" – asked Mallory with a raised eyebrow, highly amused. Q just shrugged.

"It's not him you should be worried about now but us!" – Informed them 002 gesturing to all the blood-thirsty agents standing there waiting for revenge. Funny enough, the bad guys actually looked relieved at that revelation. "Anything but him!" – Exclaimed the 'boss' as they were being led away by 002 and 009, followed by countless others.

Q turned tiredly to Mallory. "May I go home now, sir? I would like to get my glasses, shower and change my cloths."

"Of course, Q. Tanner will take you home, you get the day off. And please, do activate your alarm system this time! We don't want anything to happen to you anymore, son."

"Will do, sir, definitely will do."


End file.
